Drunkard DA?

Lest we need a reminder that angels do not administer the laws, the Gazette reports (via the Rocky Mountain News): "Fourth Judicial District Attorney John Newsome has been caught on tape drinking and then driving his county-owned vehicle, KOAA reported Tuesday. ...In all, Newsome was shown drinking about 134 ounces of beer in five hours." True, the drinking didn't start till after 4:00 p.m., and whether he was legally impaired is not a matter for me to decide. I wouldn't have been able to drink 70 ounces of beer in "less than two hours" and then drive responsibly. KOAA's video of the story is fairly damning. I do think that District Attorneys driving tax-funded vehicles should be held to a high standard. I assume that Newsome's office handles cases of impaired driving.

Ritter Signs Blue-Law Repeal

Starting July 1, Coloradans will be able to purchase liquor in stores on Sundays. The Rocky Mountain News reports:

With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Bill Ritter today signed into law a bill that makes Colorado the 35th state to permit liquor stores to open Sunday.

“This is a law whose time has finally come,” Ritter said in a statement. “The ban on Sunday sales was an antiquated law that long ago outlived its usefulness or relevance.” ...

The new law came about after liquor store owners dropped their long-standing opposition to Sunday sales.

They made the switch to head off legislation that would have allowed grocery and convenience stores to sell full-strength beer and wine. Lawmakers killed that bill in the face of strong opposition from liquor store owners.

So Colorado continues to suffer from a host of political controls on the liquor industry. Liquor stores can't sell food, and grocery stores can't sell anything but 3.2 beer (except in one location per chain). Nor can liquor stores start chains. Also, Sunday car sales continue to be illegal.

But we can buy bottled booze on Sundays. It's not much, but it's something. So, thank you Democrats. While many political issues are arcane and confusing, this one is simple and obvious to the common person. During all of its years in the majority, the Republicans did nothing but fight for the Blue Laws against the interests and liberty of consumers. On this issue, the Republicans left it to the Democrats to score one for economic liberty.

April 18 Update: Penn Pfiffner writes:

In your recent blog dealing with a step toward rolling back the Blue Laws, you said:

"During all of its years in the majority, the Republicans did nothing but fight for the Blue Laws against the interests and liberty of consumers. On this issue, the Republicans left it to the Democrats to score one for economic liberty."

True, in that the legislature never acted successfully through those years. I wanted to bring to your attention, however, that I offered legislation to end the Sunday prohibition on both liquor sales and car sales. The Republican-majority Business Affairs Committee killed the bill. If memory serves, this was sometime during the 59th General Assembly (1993 or 1994).

I appreciate Pfiffner's clarification and his work in the legislature and out.

I was referring to Republicans as a party, not to individual Republicans who sided with economic liberty.

Boulder Police Chief: Allow 18-Year-Olds to Drink

John C. Ensslin wrote a story for the March 6 Rocky Mountain News that describes some of the views of Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner regarding the drinking age. Ensslin reports:

"... I can say in summary that in addition to personal philosophical arguments (they are considered adults in every other way), I believe that the level of drinking between the ages of 18 to 21 has actually increased over the last 20 years," Beckner wrote [in a letter to City Council members].

"All of the efforts we have tried to implement over the years, including education, awareness programs, heavy enforcement, etc., have had little effect on preventing 18- to 20-year-old adults from drinking.

"What we've done is helped create an underground culture that encourages binge drinking without any oversight or supervision."

Ensslin wrote a follow-up article further explaining Beckner's views:

Beckner stressed that his department is not backing off enforcement of existing laws.

Nor is he suggesting lawmakers simply lower the drinking age without taking steps to encourage responsible drinking.

For example, Beckner said the law could require an 18-year-old to attend a mandatory alcohol awareness class to earn the right to drink.

He suggested that perhaps the law could allow 18- to 21- year-olds to drink in a restaurant but not buy alcohol from package stores.

Any change would have to come on a national level, he said.

I have long favored setting the drinking age at the age of legal adulthood, which is 18 in our society. It's not right that a person can get married, have children, sign contracts, and fight in war -- but not buy a beer.

Following are three articles I've written about the matter previously:

Dempsey Challenges Unreasonable Alcohol Laws
Fight Colorado's Discriminatory Drinking Age Law
Miles Supports Lower Drinking Age

Squash Competition to Save It?

I had to laugh at this headline for a Rocky Mountain News Speakout by William J. Barr: "Chain stores would ruin Colorado's competitive liquor business."

The thrust the piece is that Colorado's legislature must maintain the ban on chain liquor stores in order to preserve competition. In other words, in Barr's view, "competition" means threatening to send in armed officers to prevent people from opening stores. "Competition" means forcibly preventing people from associating voluntarily in the economic sphere. In short, according to Barr, "competition" means outlawing select "capitalist acts among consenting adults," to again invoke Nozick.

Barr's position is utterly ridiculous. Using political force to shut down one's competitors is the antithesis of free-market competition. But apparently Barr favors the sort of competition by which special interest groups grovel for protectionist legislation from morally corrupt politicians.

Real competition means that people have the protected right to offer their goods and services freely to willing customers. Nobody is forcing a single consumer to do business with a store that happens to be part of a chain. On a free market, any store that does not meet the needs of consumers will fail. If a chain succeeds on a free market, it is because quality management, economies of scale, and/or earned reputation draws in customers. So what Barr is really arguing is that customers must be forcibly prevented from doing business with stores that best meet their needs.